50% of iPhones Brought to Genius Bar Have Never Been Synced

[joelovesapple]

You know, I'm really not surprised by this. The amount of people who 'lose their contacts' and mention it on Facebook, creating groups to retrieve their friends numbers; they in turn post their numbers in PUBLIC for the world to see. Drives me nuts.

Often think to myself 'well, if you knew how to use your effing phone in the first place this wouldn't have happened!'

And guess what... I have an Android but I have my contacts backed up with Google, as well as my photos in Picasa albums and other stuff in other Google places. I am not against the iPhone in any way. This logic still applies however, with any smartphone.

They're often the people whose computers are infested with malware, and are still running Service Pack 2 of XP.

Need I say any more?

 

[b11051973]

I was at a genius bar a while ago. There was a girl there being helped who had never synced her iPhone or connected it to a WiFi network. It seemed so foreign to me. I'm shocked if true that 50% of iPhone users are this way.

 

[Chocolatemilty]

I'd say this is seriously plausible. I upgraded my mother to an iPhone 4 from her 3G for mother's day, but I was at college when I ordered it and she set it up herself. I instructed her to backup daily or bi-daily as she charges, for if she does so the backups won't take so long. Much to my chargin, when I returned home last Saturday for a week between sessions, I learned she hasn't backed up ONCE since she activated and put her 3G backup on it! I was dumbfounded. I showed her the iPhone user guide in Safari, all these YouTube how-to videos and everything. She just refuses to do so. iOS 5's wifi sync will be a godsend for her because she puts so much important information on her iPhone and she never backs up!

 

[eastercat]

My parents probably rarely use the gmail account my brother set up for them. If they manage to use half of their 200MB data limit each month, I'd be surprised.
Anyway, I didn't like the way that google messed up my address book.

You should sneak google exchange sync onto their phone so that when they lose or break it, their contacts and calendars are not lost.

I was at a genius bar a while ago. There was a girl there being helped who had never synced her iPhone or connected it to a WiFi network.

I hardly connect my phone to wifi, because there's hardly any where I am--and home doesn't count. Wifi is at McDonald's, Starbucks, colleges, etc, and I'm not hanging out there.

 

[manu chao]

You're definitely wrong. Talk to some normal people someday and you'll see.

Normal people either have somebody in their family who takes are of things like updates or they just religiously follow every MS update (and stay away from any other update). There are also the slightly more paranoid and irrational people who would never do online banking and don't use ATMs because their fear it will eat their debit card or not spit out the money but still charge their account.

 

[Justinf79]

Geesh, talk about lazy/clueless people.

 

[OllyW]

"Whats an OS"

Sounds just like my brother.

I recently asked him if he'd updated his Mac mini to Snow Leopard. "What's that?" was his reply. God knows what OS he's running on his iPhone.

 

[khunsanook]

Just the other day I was talking to an iPhone 3G user and was shocked to see that their phone was still in iPhone OS 3.0.1 ... But I guess people who don't keep up with technology and don't usually sync with iTunes, would have no clue that there are new OS updates. They never had to worry ab that before the iPhone!

I'm still on 3.1.3 with my 3G. Anything above iOS 3 on a 3G is practically unusable.

 

[maclaptop]

Wow, I can't even conceive of that. Never backing up? So, also, never updating the OS?

I cannot imagine why you are surprised.

After all Apple caters to those who have no clue.

The general public doesn't know what they are doing, nor do they care, they are too lazy to do any reading, or learning.

So rather than encourage them to do so, we have new buzzword from iCloud "automagically". Nothing for you (the consumer) to do. It just works. Stand back and watch it work.. ha..ha...ha..

Even the users on this forum bash Android because you actually have to learn something new.

There's no personal responsibility today, it's point the finger and blame others..

Steve Jobs is a stellar example of this finger pointing practice. "You're holding it wrong".

"We Apple, Are Perfect".

Hurry up and sue someone, anyone, grab headlines, brag about how many you sell and screw everyone else.

It's the "Apple Way"

 

[ModestForumName]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/534.32 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8F190)

You can't google "google." It tears a whole in space and time, thus negating the existence of the person altogether

 

[acslater017]

I'm sorry but those 50% are idiots and don't deserve a smart phone. They are probably the same people that type the word "google" into the google search area of a web browser.

LOL I wouldn't quite call them idiots (there may be SOME idiots out there, but 90% of people are smart in their own areas, I suppose), but I do crack up every time I see someone search for Google in the search bar.

Or my dad, who closes programs and re-launches them every time he wants to get something out of the way (as opposed to just minimizing or hiding it). He'd definitely benefit from a bit of Lion

 

[iGobbleoff]

People who never do it deserve to lose everything and start from scratch again. That's the only way they'll learn.

 

[cameronjpu]

My parents probably rarely use the gmail account my brother set up for them. If they manage to use half of their 200MB data limit each month, I'd be surprised.
Anyway, I didn't like the way that google messed up my address book.

They don't have to use their Gmail account, it just syncs so that if the phone is lost, you, the resident expert, can get their data back onto the phone in 2 minutes. I don't know what you might have done wrong last time you dealt with Google's address book, but if you do it right, it's pretty much foolproof. All changes are undo-able anyway.

 

[cameronjpu]

People who never do it deserve to lose everything and start from scratch again. That's the only way they'll learn.

And the only way you'll learn how stupid that is is when your mother/wife loses all her contacts/calendar and YOU have to spend hours fixing the problem.

 

[iSayuSay]

This is a great reality check for a lot of posters on these forums who think Mac Rumors members are a good representation of the wider iPhone owning community. We're not, we're a geeky minority. The majority of iPhone owners neither know nor care what iOS, WWDC or iCloud are.

You nailed it, sir. In fact, most of Apple consumer may never browse Macrumors.com

But really, I kinda hate this kind of people. People who don't know what or why they buy. People who buy Apple products just for social rank and considered rich that they can afford such an expensive item. Bring them to cafe and show off everyone with their iPad/iPhone or Macbooks.

While minority geek people like us here know what to do with Mac, often time we know much more than Apple's Genius

I bet many people out there don't know what iCloud means, iOS5 top features or even Lion update. They don't care, but once they listen to it, they want it so bad but they don't know how to get their hands-on it. So, they pay someone to get it for them, while you can get it yourself for cheaper or even free. Well, bit pathetic for me

 

[Tronic]

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Let me first say that while i try to hide it from the world, im a technology nerd at heart. I visit this site probably 10 times a day as well as numerous other technology orientated sites/forum.

And I last synced in the fall of 2010 when I finally updated my 3G to ios4. You might ask why, but honestly I can't think of any compelling reason to backup so frequently.

Let me say that I do not keep any music or videos on my iPhone and I could care less if my notes/texts/apps aren't backed up. I've also never paid for an app once so maybe that has something to do with it. Saving iOS and general app preferences would be the only reason for me to back up.

Feel free to bash if you want.

 

[michaelcyee]

It occurs to me that with Lion's features, Apple would be able to download fixes automatically, and then apply those fixes with a reboot and the user would probably never know it - as long as the reboot happened when they were away from the screen.

I wouldn't be trusting enough for this, but I know plenty of people that would.

I certainly hope not. My number one grip with Windows is that sometimes when it installs a super critical update it will force you to restart and you can only delay the reminder for four hours, so you either have to be on the computer and say "no" all the time, or may just come back to see that it rebooted on its own and possibly lost what you were working on. I've often complained that Windows obviously doesn't understand that "no means no," with the stubborn belief, "no, but I'll try again in four hours."

 

[eTip]

Wow, what exactly is everyone backing up that is so important? I connect my iPad/iPhone only when I am forced to - like for upgrades or jailbreaking or to transfer some movies etc. for a trip. I despise how long the backup, sync process takes. Recently, I started using VLC for movies which still requires to connect to a computer but I don't have to backup or sync. I have never downloaded or purchased a single app on my computer - doing so just seems convoluted to me. Even with two (was 3) iPhones and an iPad there isn't that much overlap of Apps between the devices & all of them are constantly connected to WiFi so it's easier to download the Apps on the device to me.


Contacts, notes & Calendar are handled flawlessly by Google and email resides on the (Yahoo) server. I download my pictures occasionally. - but that doesn't require iTunes (or a backup/sync).

Having had an iPhone & iPad since the day they were released, I don't think I have ever had to restore from a backup. Most things that are being backed up, I find to be available elsewhere - for example as email attachments. I just recently sold my IPhone 4 and am temporarily using my original iPhone which I set ups as new. The only thing I have found to be missing so far were a few bookmarks (which needed cleaned out anyhow) and some songs that I had ID'd in Shazam (had screenshots anyhow).

 

[bushido]

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my favorites last week:

"Did u finally get iOS 4.3?"
- No, i have an iPhone

"Did u finally get Windows 7?"
- No i have Office 2003 i think

I got a new phone
"Android?"
- Let me check, no the label says Samsung

"Do u have a wifi cable?"

 

[3GEE]

Can anyone tell me if it will be possible to schedule the time when the backup will occur? I have a very draconian daily wifi limit but I have a few hours during the night where I can do unlimited. This will kill my daily limit but if I can schedule it, it would be superb.

 

[Slim02]

I don't see the point of backing up an iPhone, as it doesn't really hold valuable data other than contacts. People who don't sync it probably don't use iCal or anything like that either.

I understand the ones who don't sync it: why should you plug in your mobile phone to your computer? Sure, for its most valuable features, you have to sync it, but many people, mostly older people, only want to use it as a phone and to text, and maybe use the built-in apps and download some new ones rarely. Maybe they don't even use a computer on a regular basis, or they don't want to figure out how to use iTunes.

I agree that iTunes is a pain to use if you're on a PC: you're used to Windows Media Player, and you don't want to switch to a buggy and slow application like iTunes for PC (iTunes on Mac is fine, but the PC port is horrible).

And if you don't use iTunes, then you can't sync anything basically. I think this is one of the biggest causes here.

You are clueless.. iTunes on my Windows 7 works as good as on my Mac. Slow and bugging my a$$.. And older people? what is old over 30 , 40 because my Mom is in her 50's and does more then talk and text on her phone.. I think people should say nothing about others when they have no facts or are clueless..

do not believe so.



Well if you think about it what do you need to back up on your phone?
Contacts -- Nope stored elsewhere (my case google)
Calandar -- Again somehere else (Google)
Email -- Stored elsewhere so non issue (Google)
SMS-- Ok you might loose those but to me a non issue
Music -- Chances are on your computer. new stuff from iTunes Back it up
App-- Yeah you should back those up

I know on my iPod it only connects to my computer on an update and even then it is iffy if I had not really bought anything recently.

Why should I use Google when my Mac already stores the same information that stored on my iPhone? So when I change some thing it sync both up to having the same info, so there no point to using something else.

 

[cameronjpu]

Why should I use Google when my Mac already stores the same information that stored on my iPhone? So when I change some thing it sync both up to having the same info, so there no point to using something else.

Using Google performs the same functions as far as mail, contacts and calendar, as MobileMe does, except free. So if you find yourself asking why would someone use Google to sync, use whatever justification you would use for MobileMe, except free.

If you HAPPENED to read the title of this thread, you would notice that half the world doesn't plug their phones into their computer to sync, ever. So for those people, surely you understand where the benefit of using Google to sync is? Just because you do it the old fashioned way doesn't mean there isn't another way.

 

[Slim02]

Using Google performs the same functions as far as mail, contacts and calendar, as MobileMe does, except free. So if you find yourself asking why would someone use Google to sync, use whatever justification you would use for MobileMe, except free.

If you HAPPENED to read the title of this thread, you would notice that half the world doesn't plug their phones into their computer to sync, ever. So for those people, surely you understand where the benefit of using Google to sync is? Just because you do it the old fashioned way doesn't mean there isn't another way.

Again why should I need to use Google? To use Google you need internet. Where syncing my iPhone to my Mac needs no internet.. Also storing your info on Google server can get hacked where my Mac would not and is safer too...

 

[cameronjpu]

Again why should I need to use Google? To use Google you need internet. Where syncing my iPhone to my Mac needs no internet.. Also storing your info on Google server can get hacked where my Mac would not and is saver too...

You don't have a need to have information instantly backed up, accessible on multiple devices at all times and places, without the cost of spending 5 minutes a day waiting for it to happen. That's fine! Some of us do have those needs, and for us, thank god there are better ways to do it than the old fashioned way.

 

[Popeye206]

No big surprise. Most consumers don't know 1/2 of what their smartphone can do. Not to mention not know why you'd do something like sync.